


what went we into this wilderness to find

by noncorporealform



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst and Feels, Drowning, Established Relationship, Multi, Paralysis, Polyamory, Psychological Horror, Psychological Torture, Relationship Problems, That's Not How The Force Works, The Force, cosmic horror, it’s a metaphor hazel grace, it’s actually meant to be nice come on in, suffocation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-16
Updated: 2020-01-16
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:54:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22282948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noncorporealform/pseuds/noncorporealform
Summary: The renegade star destroyer Phasmid eludes Poe Dameron for months, before appearing in deep space. It’s out of fuel, devoid of life forms, and there are no signs of a battle. To figure out what happened to the Phasmid and her crew, Finn, Poe, and Rey board and find out first-hand what horrors lie in the silence of space.Or; what else are you going to do on a spaceship haunted by an unknowable cosmic entity than work on your relationship problems?
Relationships: Poe Dameron/Finn/Rey
Comments: 5
Kudos: 50





	what went we into this wilderness to find

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I have returned from my internet exile to bring you a horror fanfiction with lots of feels because of course I have.
> 
> There are no major adherences to tros but it assumes you know what happens in the canon.

The three of them sat cozy around a small, circular table. They still wore robes and their sleeping clothes, cozy around mugs of caf, freshly showered and waking. Rey’s feet were on the edge of the table, her knees up and frame squished, and Finn’s feet were wound up in Poe’s. Their giggling was musical and warm.

“That’s not true!” Rey laughed.

Poe held up his hand to swear it. “Honest, that’s how I got that scar. Of course, you’re all sworn to secrecy.”

“I can’t believe you’ve willingly told us this,” Finn said. “I don’t know how I’m going to look you in the eye anymore.”

Poe winked and it made Finn and Rey chortle.

“I thought it’d be some terrific war wound,” Rey said.

“No, I’ve got plenty of those. This one, though?” Poe slapped the side of his knee. “That’s privileged information.”

Finn’s gaze softened as Rey and Poe began to chatter together. Something about ships and their maintenance. It was almost an argument. ‘I can’t believe you’d do that to that engine!’ Poe would cry while Rey’s face went wild with amused shock. And on, and on it went.

They were getting better at this, Finn realized. Their interactions were based on fast-talking banter more than any kind of honest conversations, getting-to-know-you style, but it wasn’t as awkward between them. The fact remained that outside their now larger bed, there was a strain. A shyness. They were both still bashful around each other. Some outside, nameless assumption told Finn that maybe he should have been jealous and want them to pull apart more, but he wanted the opposite. He wanted them to have a conversation about something other than engines, but something between them just wouldn’t break down. Finn couldn’t force it, he just couldn’t. If he pushed them, something would break. He just had to wait, frustrated, as he watched the two people he cared about most in the universe fiddle with their mugs and talk too fast to be more than friends—though friends that knew every inch of each other’s bodies.

Rey and Poe’s laughter mingled and filled the room, only interrupted by the hiss of a door opening. They all three turned, smiles still on their faces when Lieutenant Connix leaned into the room. If she had ever been bothered by the arrangement that everybody at this point knew about, it never showed on her face. In fact, she had covered for Dameron several times so the three of them could steal their moments. But clearly, the urgency superseded her discretion.

“General Dameron,” Connix said. “I’ve got something interesting for you.”

#

They were pulled into an empty command room, the console in the center glowing with the outline of a ship, tipped and floating dead in the void.

“What am I looking at?” Poe asked.

“It’s a resurgent-class star destroyer, sir,” Connix said. “The Phasmid.”

Poe’s eyes widened at the sound of that. The excitement was practically bursting out of his skin. “Are you sure?”

“Completely.”

“Hmm,” Finn said. “I don’t like that name.”

“Me, either,” Poe said.

Finn and Rey leaned up against the console to get a better look. “A star destroyer,” Rey said. “What’s so important about this specific ship?”

“I’ve been looking for it for months,” Poe replied. “Those bombings on Coruscant and Canto Bight? The First Order insurgency in Onderon? We think it’s a faction of leftover First Order officers that have started to use guerilla tactics with what trooper forces they have left. I had intelligence that they were operating out of a single ship, the Phasmid. And she’s right here.

“Lieutenant, what’s the situation like? Are they getting ready for another jump? Is there a way we can engage?”

“That’s just it, general,” Connix said. “There’s no signal traffic to find out. No TIE fighters are patrolling the area. They’re out of fuel. Initial scans don’t even read lifeforms. The thing’s dead in the water, sir. I don’t think there’s anything alive on that ship.”

#

Poe was certain he was meant to stay behind and have more strategy meetings with his position as general, but he was going on this mission, come hell or high water.

He would have tried to get Finn and Rey to stay behind, but there was no arguing with them—not to mention the fact that leaving them behind meant leaving his best allies in this. Both sensitive to the Force, Finn knowing every inch of First Order class ships, and capable of taking care of themselves, and each other. Still, some guilt at putting them in danger knotted Poe’s stomach.

The Resistance ship jumped into the space around the Phasmid. Rey’s stomach dropped at the sight of it. It wasn’t aligned right, floating perilously near an impossibly large gas giant, all purples and greens swirling in gas storms.. It was like looking at a dead fish in a bowl of clear water. It wasn’t nearly as large as the grandest ships the First Order had fought with, but there was plenty of room for surprises. The gray, triangular star destroyer was tiered, like stairs to a lofty upper deck, one of the strangest designs in the First Order Navy. It was still and dark, every light out.

“I have a bad feeling about this,” Finn said.

The Force moved through Rey. She felt it like fingertips across her skin, and that touch pushed in deeper.

“Me, neither,” Rey said.

“What are you feeling?” Poe whispered, intimate and close.

Rey closed her eyes and reached out. First there was nothing but that feeling—dread. The kind of dread that comes in childhood, standing at the threshold of a dark room, unable to believe there was no monster lurking there. In the end, Rey had always seen the monsters hiding in the dark, and could not push that feeling away.

She reached further out.

It was quiet at first. Distant. The voices were long-gone, but they had left their impression on the Force around the ship. It permeated like a memory.

Screaming. Voice on top of panicked voice.

Rey pulled back. The two men beside her watched, worried, as she gathered her thoughts into words.

“Something terrible happened here,” Rey said.

#

They took a shuttle from the Resistance ship to the Phasmid, landing in the open, empty bay. There had been no firing, no shields to drop. Poe put the ship down and the three of them waited, listening, after he cut the engines.

“This is too quiet,” Poe said.

“You said there’s no life forms, right?” Finn asked, double-checking the computer.

Poe shooed him away. “I know how to check for lifeforms,” he needled.

“But are you sure?” Rey asked.

“Yes!” Poe said, exasperation hidden in a laugh.

The bay was populated with a handful of ships, and TIE fighters were docked on the walls. Finn held his gun across his chest, scowling at every corner, knowing instinctively where the stormtroopers would be stationed. Not seeing them didn’t comfort him. Poe had his blaster out, but it hung by his side, and Rey had her saber in a white-knuckle grip.

“I certainly don’t feel alone here,” Rey said. “It’s like there are hundreds of eyes, watching me.”

“Let’s just hope you’re wrong,” Poe said.

“Where are we going?” Finn asked.

“The best place to be is the command deck. It’ll have access to everything we need—logs, reports, communications. So long as we can get into them.”

Finn tapped his head. “Got a few tricks for that.”

Poe clapped Finn on the shoulder.

As they left the hangar, the two began to discuss strategy, the ins and outs of intelligence gathering in a First Order ship; all the while, Rey’s steps began to slow. She found herself feet behind the pair, her head cocked, listening. It was something like music, a flat, base note growling under the hum of the ship’s automatic workings. She turned down a hallway and her feet were carrying her toward the sound.

The hallway went on forever, disappearing into perspective. The ship was massive, and it might go on for a mile, straight and mathematically true.

As if attached to a string, she was gently pulled along.

“Hello?” Rey whispered, a soft sound that seemed to travel in the stillness forever.

In some corner of her mind she could hear the two men chattering, but as if from behind a pane of glass.

She shouted as the floor underneath her fell out, the ceiling and floor rolling until one was indistinguishable from the other and she slid down that mile-long hallway, trying to grab something, anything, that could keep her from falling. She called for help, for Finn, for Poe, but she was falling too fast and she knew the landing was going to hurt.

#

“Rey?” Finn asked. “Poe, wait.”

Poe had been talking about the Phasmid and its exploits, but stopped abruptly. He scanned the area around him. “Rey?”

The two men doubled back to the long hallway they had just passed, and peeked back out into the hangar. Poe held his hands out incredulously.

“Where is she?” Poe asked.

“Rey!” Finn said, his hands cupped around his mouth.

“Hold on, that might be useless. Let me just—“

The datapad he pulled out of his pocket lit up for a moment before flickering. Poe bashed it on the side a few times. It seemed to work, for a moment, before it made an angry noise.

“What the hell?” Poe said. “I’m trying to get life form readings, and the damn thing won’t scan.”

“Call Lieutenant Connix, see if she can do a shipwide scan.”

“Good idea. Lieutenant? Can you do a life form scan for me? Lieutenant? This is General Dameron, hailing. Hello?”

Poe shook the device again and it flickered. “Nothing.”

“Great,” Finn said.

“Let’s just stay calm.”

“Stay calm? Rey just vanished into thin air!”

“She’s going to be right around some corner. She’s always running off after something. Whatever it was must have been important. Rey?”

“Rey!”

“This is useless. Maybe we should split up.”

Finn leveled his eyes at Poe. “Are you kidding me? That’s monumentally stupid.”

“The place is empty.”

“What if we’re wrong about that? What if another First Order ship is hanging around and comes out of light speed right on top of us? What if bounty hunters are waiting for an opportunity like this to sneak up on us? What if you fall down and I can’t find you and you bleed to death?”

“Finn, how much have you thought about this?”

Finn waved his hand in the air, dismissing him. “My point is, splitting up just doubles the chances of something going horribly wrong.”

“I guess you’re right. That’s good thinking, General.”

“Thanks, General.”

“I would kiss you if I wasn’t so worried about Rey.”

“Yeah, same here. Look, there’s another possibility. We use the ship’s scanners. There must be one nearby. This class of ship keeps auxiliary command centers on every deck. We just look for life signs and she’ll pop up.”

They found one just a few yards down from the hangar and at the sight of what was behind the doors froze them where they stood.

It was like every object in the room had been thrown in the air and landed evenly on the ground. Blasters, pens, datapads, hats, lunch boxes, everything. Something about the mess was off, unnatural, but they didn’t have time to think about it. They rushed into the room and Finn began to search for the lifeform scanner when something happened.

Finn and Poe flinched when the automatic holovid recording played, the image of a First Order officer loosening her collar floating in the air. The officer hemmed, rubbing her neck.

“I don’t—“ The First Order officer was failing. Her eyes were hollow. “I don’t have anything left. Someone will find this message, maybe, but it won’t matter. I’m not speaking as Commander Kreif of the First Order. I’m no more than a warning now.”

Finn and Poe made eye contact in the blue glow of the holovid. The officer, Kreif, was still gathering her words. Finn recognized the same unease in Poe as it was in his own heart.

“It was that icy, inhospitable pustule of a planet. It latched onto us there, I’m sure of it. There aren’t many of us now. It’s taken nearly everyone. We tried to get away, jump after jump, but whatever it is has strapped itself to us, and there’s no running from this. There’s no forcing it out of your ship. There’s no reasoning with it. It just is, it’s there, it’s everywhere. And we can’t make another jump.

“Whoever you are, and I don’t care who you are: you’re never going to leave this place. This thing does not stop, and it never lets go. We should never have gone where we went, should never have done what we did. We’re all going to pay for that. I just hope you’re Resistance, you sons of—“

Kreif’s eyes changed. She turned, quiet, and walked out of the holovid. The message went dead.

Neither Poe or Finn could speak.

“Poe—,” Finn started.

“We need to find Rey,” Poe said. “Where is the damned—“

Poe found something, pressed a button. His eyes went wide.

“Well that’s...interesting,” Poe said.

“What is it?” Finn asked. He leaned over, close to Poe.

Poe pointed at the diagram of the ship. It was glowing orange.

“It’s reading the ship as a lifeform. Damn it. We can’t find Rey with this malfunctioning like this.”

Poe slammed his fist on the console as if that would make the scanner work the way it was supposed to.

“I’ll check the security cameras,” Finn said.

“Good thinking,” Poe said.

“Thanks.”

They cycled through the cameras on the deck they were on, finding nothing. Finn cycled through each deck, switching from one feed to another, all the while the bad feeling that had been there from the start beginning to swell. No ship like this was ever meant to be unmanned, but it was as empty as a desert. Emptier. Deserts at least had little critters waiting around for your blood.

“What happened here?” Poe whispered.

There, at the command deck, was at last a figure. Slight but strong, stance ready for anything. Rey, obscured by shadows.

“How’d she get up there that fast?” Poe asked.

“What’s she doing?” Finn asked, peering at the screen.

Rey turned to the camera and something in her eyes glinted back, like the eyes of a predator in the darkness.

There was a crackle and the feed went dark.

“I don’t like this,” Finn said.

“Agreed,” Poe said. “We’ve gotta get up there, now.”

The pair of them ran to the lifts, but as Poe got into the turbolift he turned to see Finn just behind him, having a moment of hesitation. More than hesitation. Fear.

There was something in the lift that hadn’t been there a moment ago, behind Poe like a stark shadow.

“Poe!” Finn cried.

Before Finn could reach him, whatever it was behind poe sprouted limbs—more than two—and wrapped itself around Poe’s face and torso, Poe only beginning to fight back when the lift doors closed. Finn leapt towards them but they were solid and closed and slamming the side of his fist against it didn’t do a thing.

There was a way to find out where the lift was going. He studied the panel next to the door, cautiously tracking the dot that represented Poe’s lift with his fingertip.

The lift stopped amidst mid-decks and Finn slammed the button to summon it back. It was returned in the manner of seconds and Finn got inside, telling the lift where to go.

The entire lift rocked, like the ship had been hit by canon-fire. Finn had to hold the walls to keep from falling over.

The lift began to descend.

There were no decks below the hangar.

He travelled so long down that he was sure his body must have been mistaken. He couldn’t be going down, not for this long. He was rocketing in his descent to floors that couldn’t possibly exist. The lift came to an abrupt halt, and it was all Finn could do not to fall on his knees. The lift doors opened and he saw that it was snowing.

Finn was frozen at the sight of the great space stretching ahead of him, a gray and red room for Stormtroopers to gather and receive their orders. Snow was falling from the shadows that covered the ceiling. It was like the roof of the room simply didn’t exist, and the snow was coming from clouds in the night with no starlight, or moonlight. The floor was an untouched down of white that absorbed a strange blue light that had no source. The snow muffled everything, even Finn’s own heavy breaking.

Finn slammed the button on the lift, but it didn’t budge. He retreated further into the elevator, back to the wall, refusing to come out. He’d done a lot of stupid things in his life, but he knew better than not to trust his instincts on this one. He tried the lift again, but nothing, just a useless error noise for the button that was meant to bring him back up.

“No,” Finn said. “No way.”

_Finn._

It wasn’t a voice. Just his name, as it was, ringing in his head without a source.

The Force didn’t move through him as easily as it did Rey, but he could still feel it with every fiber of his being. For Finn, it more about knowing, feeling, intuiting. And he felt her, deep in the darkness—Rey. It was her, somehow, and also alien and strange.

They were both in danger. Poe and Rey, and he was pulled in both directions. But with Rey, they would have a better chance at getting Poe out of trouble. A Jedi would know what to do.

He stepped out of the lift.

He heard the hiss of the door closing rapidly and he turned.

There was no lift. Just more ready room stretching out into the distance.

“Okay.” Finn’s voice trembled, hollow with shock.

He stepped through the snow, his boots beginning to absorb the cold. His were the only footprints, but he looked for others. Rey’s feet were slight and narrow, but he didn’t see those patterns anywhere.

“Right,” Finn said to himself. “You just gotta find her. She’s in here somewhere.”

_Finn._

That instinct again. It rattled him, his own name, new and special and his; the first thing that had ever really been his, besides his own will, felt for the first time in his Awakening. Something was using that name in a way that put him off, unbalanced him.

Finn took another few steps into the darkness, his own body illuminated by some light that was unseen, the same which made the snow glow. The chill got into more than just his body.

“Rey?” Finn tried.

Something, a presence, just behind him.

_Don’t turn around._

Finn turned around.

Nothing. More room, stretching out.

The same energy that was manifesting his name had put that idea into his head. Finn turned back around but couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something just behind him, in the spot he had just seen as empty.

Finn screwed up his courage.

He ran.

There had to be an end to this place. Ready rooms weren’t that big. He was sure there had to be an end to it eventually—

There it was, a black door surrounded by the red glow of First Order lights. They hissed open at his approach and he flew into the dark hallway beyond. He stopped and caught his breath, turning back to see the room one more time before the doors hissed shut.

There were no doors.

It was a dead end, a wall in a hallway that seemed to lead to nothing. Finn stared, wide-eyed, panting, as he tried to do anything with the unreality of this place but panic.

Finn closed his eyes. The Force was with him. He would survive this. His breathing calmed.

When he turned around, Rey was there.

He shouted at the surprise of her sudden appearance but everything superseded that fear when he wrapped his arms around her.

She wasn’t holding him back.

He stepped back, holding her at arm’s length. Rey’s face was puzzled. Finn stroked her face and touched her cheek with his thumb.

“Why are you here?” Rey asked.

“We were looking for you,” Finn said. “It’s Poe, he—“

Rey sneered and moved away from him, Finn’s hands dropping from where he was touching him.

“Who would want a coward like you?” Rey said.

Finn’s heart lurched and stung. “What?”

“Look at what you did,” Rey said. “Look!”

_Don’t look behind you._

He turned around. There was more hallway, stretching out beyond. The stormtroopers stood in lines, three across and dozens deep. Their armor was shattered, dirty, and bloody. Finn reeled away and turned to grab on to Rey so they could run.

There was no one when he turned around. He checked behind him. The door was back, and he pushed the button, thinking of the ready room on the other side of it.

Just more hallway, where the ready room should have been.

He did the only thing he could think of doing: he ran. There had to be an exit, Rey had to be around some corner or bend, but there was no one in the alcoves, no rooms to hide in. It was impossible that she had disappeared.

He turned a corner, skidding to an awkward stop.

The same door with the same serial numbers.

He entertained the idea that he had gone in circles.

You know it, don’t you? Rey said somewhere, disembodied. Deep in your bones? I think it’s time we were honest with each other.

“Rey,” Finn said. “Please—“

_Stop following me around like a pet tooka._

“My head.”

_Do you really think I feel the same way? You’re good for the moment, but I’ll find something better. I always do. Look at you. You were always weaker than me._

Finn’s head was swimming and he pressed the sides of his head, as if that would stop it spinning.

_Think. How many times have I left you behind?_

Images ran rampant in Finn’s head. Running after her, and she never looked behind.

“Stop.”

_Think._

“You’re not her.”

_No. I’m the truth of her._

Something fell on the back of his neck, and his cheeks. Flakes of snow.

He turned all around him. He was back at the beginning of the hallway, the same damned door behind him. He picked up his feet and ran down the hallway again, stopping to catch his breath.

_Don’t look behind you._

He looked. The shock of it made his feet tangle together and he fell on his read.

The same door.

He had gone nowhere.

#

It was dark when Rey woke up. She was laying in a cool bed, positioned on her back, and arms were around her. She let her lids droop closed. She was waking up like this nearly every day, the arms of those two impossible men around her, no matter what they had or had not gotten into the night before. Her head lolled to the side, where Poe usually lay, and the skin she touched with her forehead was cold. That was when she truly noticed the cold. It was the kind of night-chill she was used to on Jakku, so she hadn’t understood its strangness until skin touched skin. Her eyes still weren’t open, but they began to flutter.

Whatever was next to her, it wasn’t Poe, and it was seeping into the ground.

Rey shouted and leapt up, watching the two figures sink into the bed, arms and torsos collapsing, black forms becoming one with black sheets, like puddles of oil coalescing to become one. Poe’s familiar face became liquid and broke out of its shape. The doubles of the two men had been familiar, but Rey knew they had never been Finn and Poe. Her body was shuddering and she was holding her lightsaber in her hand, not knowing when she’d grabbed it. There was no comfort in its hum or golden light as the room grew darker around her. It almost seemed to want to snuff the lightsaber’s glow, but Rey held it out in front of her, a torch against the night.

There was no way to tell how large the room was without exploring. Rey’s teeth were grit and her footing cautious as she moved through the room. Her hand was out to her side, just in case she might find a wall, and every deep chasm she’d ever seen appeared in her head to remind her to step carefully.

“Hello?” Rey said.

That was a mistake. She could feel whatever was out there listening, and she had told it where she was. What ‘it’ was, she didn’t know, but there was something waiting for her in the darkness. She screwed up her courage and glared into the darkness.

“Whoever you are, come out! Now!”

The silence was different. It was holding its breath.

Rey waited for a reply, but none came. “Poe?” she tried, softly, quietly. “Finn? Anybody? Please.”

If it had a face, Rey would feel better. Things with faces were easier to fight.

Snow. Rey blinked as the first few cold flakes landed on her cheek. She had known what it was before she’d remembered the word for it. She wiped the wet, cold specks away before holding her hand out. She collected the thick snow in her palm. She could only see a few feet skyward, not seeing any heavy, dark snow clouds. She had only seen snow a few times, and always thought it was beautiful, but here—it was wrong and cold, like a portent of doom.

Something breathed in the dark and she saw a plume of breath.

She reached out in the dark and grabbed whatever it was, holding her saber back, as if to strike.

A gasp and a pause.

It was in Finn’s shape, but it wasn’t Finn. It didn’t have his eyes, for a start. It didn’t have eyes at all. It looked like Finn did when he had been sleeping, woken up, but not really opened his eyes as he began to rise. He was a shape, a mold of Finn, in one strange, dark oily color. The Finn-like-thing turned to face her head-on, and she was certain it was going to open its eyes. She didn’t want it to open its eyes.

The Finn-like-thing parted its lips, and that breath escaped into the air again.

Rey opened her mouth to speak, but words failed.

“Finn?” she finally managed.

He was just gone. Not vanished, or ran away, but like he had melted into the very darkness. Rey grasped the air where the Finn-like-thing had been, but found no purchase on anything.

“Finn!” she cried. She didn’t want the Finn-like-thing to hear her. She needed the real Finn, the man she held on to whenever she could, grasping him in a furious hug every time. The first friend she had ever had, the exact reason they had become what they were. “Finn!”

Hands on her arms, hands on her legs, pulling at her. Oily dark molds of people.

“Stop!” Rey cried. “Stop it!”

The ground cracked underneath her, becoming liquid, melting. She breached the surface of something, an almost organic membrane. She floated in something thicker than water. Oil. Dark. Going on forever. She couldn’t even open her eyes and thought of the Finn-like-thing, how its eyes had rested closed.

#

Poe was suffocating. Something was over his face, and no matter what, it wouldn’t let go. He clawed at it, but it was enveloping him, fast. His lungs burned and eyes watered.

_This is not how I’m gonna die._

Poe kicked and fought, but whatever it was wouldn’t let go. The lift was rocketing up, the whir of the machine filling his head. As he suffocated, the fight began to go out of his limbs. The elevator became darker with every flutter of his eyes.

Someone was stroking his hair. They laid him down, gentle and loving.

His cheek was on a floor that was no longer moving. He could stay like this, he thought, sinking closer to unconsciousness. Fingers in his hair, tingles of intimacy running down his skin. Finn. Rey. They liked his hair. It had taken him ages to let them touch him that way in the quiet moments of the night, and now he near-expected it.

He must have been in their bed, surely. There were arms around him, stroking his cheekbones and jaw. Then something strange—chill, in a spec. The feel of a sharply cold snowfall. He hummed and began to open his eyes.

A sharp inhale of breath. Disoriented, sick, and confused.

He was on the ceiling, pinned like a lamp. He wanted to reach out and grasp something but the more he tried the more he realized he couldn’t move. Something was holding him still, paralyzing him, some strange many-limbed thing he could still feel embracing him.

 _Let me go let me go let me go_ , whispered in his head until it was like he couldn’t conjure any other words. Needing to scream, he could only breathe, more and more rapid.

It was making him watch. Rey was there, with Finn. They were holding hands, talking, laughing.

_See me._

They nuzzled close together and kissed. Oblivious and happy to what was around them, it was like Poe was witnessing any other day. Snow was falling on them, accumulating on their shoulders and their head, but Poe couldn’t turn his head to see where it was coming from.

Then, far in the corner, dark shapes. Like and unlike Finn and Rey. Cast like a mould in some strange, oily substance. The real Finn and Rey didn’t see these strange doppelgänger. Poe tried to scream, to warn them. The oily doubles, eyeless and still, looked up at Poe, pinned to the ceiling. He couldn’t look at them, just the man and woman beneath him.

The Not-Rey and Not-Finn stood behind both of them, the real Finn and Rey oblivious. He tried to scream, to call out to them, but he could only breathe rapid.

_See me!_

_Please._

_Rey. Finn. See me._

Finn and Rey continued talking at the Not-Finn-and-Rey began to wrap their arms around the pair. They didn’t know they were being taken by the creatures, which sprouted limbs and covered their faces, wrapped around their bodies, and took them.

Poe saw it, pinned on the ceiling across from him. His own double, eyes never opening.

Scream, Poe thought. Just scream, just scream, just scream.

He couldn’t, and he couldn’t in the hour after that.

#

It was quiet there. Peaceful. She could stay here, in the blanket of it, in the same cool that lulled her to sleep at night on Jakku. Cool and heavy.

_See me._

Rey opened her eyes. The world around her was the bluish dark of deep water, and she was floating in it. Not drowning though. She had no breath, but did not struggle for air. She swam, becoming upright in the liquid, looking through it. She peered through the darkness and saw something close by. A figure. She swam toward it and only stopped short when she saw her.

A First Order officer in a pale suit, something different than the usual officer’s uniform, though she didn’t know what rank she was. The officer floated in the water, eyes closed, sleeping, her face the same uneasy peace as the Finn-like-thing. She reached out, but stopped herself. It would be waking someone, possibly, and she didn’t know what to do if she did.

_See me!_

Poe. She had never heard him so desperate. It wasn’t like Poe to be panicking, but that was what she felt. Raw terror, clawing, helpless. She moved through the oily void and that was when she saw the scope of things.

Bodies were floating in the oil, their eyes closed, suspended in sleep. They went on forever. Some of them were dressed in officer clothing, some in stormtrooper armor, others in janitorial gear. There were so many of them.

_Please! See me!_

She moved through the liquid until she spotted him, suspended in the watery oil. Rey held him by his arms. He had that same sleepy face as the Finn-like-thing, and all the others. Like he was just dozing.

He wasn’t.

Rey felt the emotions pent up inside of Poe, trying to escape, but with nowhere to go. It was like a nightmare but so much stronger. She grabbed him by his jacket and yanked him up.She didn’t know what they were going for, what would be waiting for them on the surface, but she knew that now that she was awake and swimming, something was moving underneath.

She pushed at the surface of the deep and felt a membrane wall. Her fingers spread and she pushed and something gave way, a rip that grew wider. Rey cradled Poe under his arms and they surged upward.

It was so cold when they fell out that they both yelled at the shock. They weren’t just rising from the water, they were tumbling, the world suddenly not having an up or down. They landed on the floor of a hallway. Rey turned back and watched as the tear in the wall drooled with liquid before healing and disappearing. The only trace of that place left was on them, a slick substance that chilled her skin.

Poe screamed.

Rey didn’t think that kind of terror could exist in this man. He was shaking, barely holding himself up by his hands, nearly falling to his elbows. The screams became staccatos of yells as it calmed into something that sounded more human than animal.

“It’s okay!” Rey said, holding him around the shoulders. “It’s alright now.”

“You couldn’t see me,” Poe said. “Why couldn’t you _see me_?”

“I see you, Poe. I’m right here.”

“I was right there and you wouldn’t even turn around, you wouldn’t even look at me.”

“Poe, that wasn’t me. Whatever it showed you, it wasn’t real.”

“Not real, not real, not real. It wasn’t real. I was—I couldn’t move. It wouldn’t let me move, I couldn’t even scream. The things it showed me. Rey. It showed me terrible things and I could only watch.”

Poe clutched his face in his shaking hand. Rey rested her forehead on the crown of his head. He tensed at her touch. She pulled away. She had never had to pull away from Poe before.

“It’s like,” Poe said. “I’m standing at a window outside the room where you are with Finn. Even if we’re in the same room together, I’m—extraneous matter. You could cut me out and not miss the tissue.”

“Of course we would miss you. Poe, what did it show you? Because whatever it was, it’s a lie.”

“Just what is. What always is.”

“Poe—“

“You don’t see me. You’ll be right there and you won’t see—won’t see—me.”

Rey cradled Poe’s face. Their skin was slick and it was hard to grasp on to one another, but the matter was drying and it was easier now.

“I see you,” Rey said. “I just—sometimes I feel a bit shy. Around you, I mean.”

“Wait...what?”

That puzzled look on Poe’s face, that was more familiar. Men like Poe were often the last to know something like this. Rey shrugged. “You and Finn bonded so quickly, but I feel like I’m still just getting to know you.”

“Yeah...yeah, same here. Rey, I—I’m sorry, this isn’t the time or place for this.”

“Wait.”

Rey settled Poe down, pushing him to sit by leaning hard onto his shoulders. They both sat in the empty star destroyer, the cold, abandoned halls shielding them from the outside threat.

The image of the oily moulds of Finn and Poe melting around her came into her mind.

She could lose him. Not just Poe. Both of them. She’d lost so many others. Seeing their mirror images melt away into nothing, as if they’d never been there at all, it meant the entity, whatever it was, knew exactly what it was doing.

Rey made Poe look her directly in the eye. He shivered and blinked, but held her gaze.

“This probably isn’t the right time,” Rey said. “But things are pretty desperate and I don’t want something unsaid that should be said. Poe: I’ve always liked you. I’ve always wanted to know you better, the way Finn knows you. I love you, and Finn, but just because we still have things to learn about each other, it doesn’t lessen that bond. It’s only going to get stronger. I just—I’ve let so many other things be an illusion of hope. I’m not throwing away something like this. I see you, Poe.”

Poe was trembling, from the cold or from what he’d just seen in there, or both. His expression softened and he pinched her narrow chin between thumb and forefinger.

“You know, I loved Finn the moment I saw him,” Poe said. “But—“

“But?” Rey asked, wrinkling her nose as she smiled, her giddy nerves plain on her face.

“You kinda snuck up on me.”

Poe kissed her, still holding her chin. It was a quiet, small thing that Rey completely blew open by pressing back even harder, throwing her arms around his shoulders. Poe smiled into the kiss and for a moment, was able to forget where he was. Rey pulled away abruptly, smoothing Poe’s wet hair from his forehead.

“Come on,” Rey said. “We’re going to get Finn back if it kills us. We’re stronger together.”

“Stronger together,” Poe echoed.

Rey stood up and offered Poe her hand. He grabbed it and she yanked him up. They stood there for a second, just holding hands, then staring down at them clasped together.

They moved fast down the hall, holding on to one another, knowing what this place liked to do to people when they got them all alone.

#

The hallway was decaying.

The further he went along, the worse it got. The metal was rusting, the paint was peeling, the odor was getting worse. The stormtroopers had stopped appearing, which was somehow worse. At least then there was a danger he could point to, or run from. Here, there was just that terrifying _presence_ , that thing that wouldn’t stop breathing down his neck. He pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes and tried to shut it out.

_Don’t look behind you._

He didn’t. He knew what would be there. The same hall he was always in; no doors, no windows, no way out. Just a loop.

_Finn?_

Finn made a noise deep in his throat. This again.

“Leave me alone,” Finn said.

_I can feel you, but I can’t find you. Finn, reach out with your feelings. You’re so close. We’re right here, Finn._

The same trick again. He would get so close to her and she would sneer and pull away again, leaving him here in this endless place.

“I said go away!” Finn screamed in the hallway.

 _Finn!_ incredulous and scolding.

“What!?” he screamed into the empty hallway. His fists were balled up and he was tired, more tired than he ever been.

_Reach out. Find us._

“I’m just going to lay down—,” Finn said.

_Finn, no! Reach out! We can find you!_

“I’m so tired,” he muttered.

Then, another voice from out of the ether. _Don’t you dare do this to me, buddy._

Poe?

Poe couldn’t reach out with the force. Unless—

Unless Rey was helping him to, if she had some way to extend Poe’s thoughts and voice to him. He’d never heard of such a thing, but it was enough to make Finn want to reach out—

He knew that presence, the two of them, had laid in the same bed with them and absorbing the knowledge of them like osmosis.

It was them. It was really them.

There was a way out. Rey was showing him. In his minds eye, he saw the way, and it wasn’t a door.

Finn put his hand on the wall. It was cool and moist, like it was made of something gelatinous, not metal. He reached out with his feelings, past the membrane of the wall.

They’d come for him, both of them. It didn’t seem real.

He stuck his fingers into the membrane and it made a noise, a squelch so wet it made Finn bodily cringe. He had just started to press his hand in when they beat him to it. Two pairs of hands, intimately familiar, pushed past the skin of the illusion and grasped his forearm.

The whole world turned like it was on a top. His stomach dropped as gravity was upended. He passed through something wet and disgusting, finally landing with a thud and a shout amongst two other bodies.

There was a wound on the ceiling that Finn watched heal and disappear.

Finn made a sound and shot up, wheeling back away from the pair that had pulled him out.

“Don’t touch me,” Finn said.

Poe and Rey were holding on to each other’s forearms desperately, but reaching for Finn.

“We’re real,” Poe promised. “Whatever it showed you, that wasn’t real. You need to come here. We have to hold on to each other. That’s the only chance we have to get out of here.”

“Oh yeah? How do I know that? How do I know you’re not messing with my head?”

“It’s us,” Rey said. “Come here.”

Finn stood his ground while Poe and Rey moved closer. Finn already knew. It was them, the real them. Nobody felt quite like them. The imposter Rey had always felt like an it, and this was her.

“How do I know?” Finn said again, voice a cracking whisper. He gestured between himself and the two of them. “How do I know that any of this is real?”

Finn panted, his chest rising and falling with deep breaths.

“Finn—,” Rey said, incredulous.

“We’re always running,” Finn said. “And sometimes it’s like I’m always running after you, both of you, and you just don’t even turn to look at me. I turn around and no one’s there. There’s nothing, forever, no one running after me.”

Poe and Rey were quiet, stunned into silence. The two of them were grasping each other anew, unable to say anything. Finn could see they were struggling to explain themselves, but it was too late. They didn’t have an excuse, an explanation. Whatever it was, it had shown him what he wouldn’t accept, finally.

It was Poe that stepped forward first. “Finn, I’m sorry that I don’t say it enough. I love you. I’ve been running after you this whole time.”

“What?” Finn said.

“The moment I saw you on the base, saw that you were alive, that you didn’t die on Jakku, I never wanted to let go of you again. Sometimes you’re the first to wake up and you go somewhere else and when I see that empty space I get scared all over again. I just want to know where you are, that you’re okay. We all get sent into danger, that’s who we are, but I will always need to find you. In the end, I need you to come home to us.”

_To us._

Rey held out her hand. It was the only gesture she needed to make. It had been the same the moment she had decided to accept Finn into her life.

Not for the first time, Finn felt monumentally foolish. It had gotten into his head, made him walk a never-ending loop until he was exhausted enough to let it plant this idea, to feed the paranoia he’d had since their relationship turned into this. He was recoiling from the people who had searched him out and found him. Not just here.

“It lies,” Rey said.

Finn pressed against his temple with the heel of his palm, feeling all the world like he was going to cry.

He took Rey’s hand and buried himself between the two bodies that moved in for the embrace. They hugged, wound together, the squelch of their bodies, covered in residue, not stopping them from pressing together until they were nearly crushed.

“We’re behind you, Finn,” Rey said. “We love you.”

#

They created a chain of arms, Rey leading the way, Finn in the center, Poe in the rear, holding hard onto his blaster. They were stronger together, no longer at risk of being picked apart, one-by-one. That didn’t mean that whatever this thing was, it would easily let them go.

“We need to get to the shuttle,” Poe yelled.

“Through there,” Finn said next.

They began to run, still holding hands in a chain. There was a bridge between them and the other side of the ship, toward the hangar and the lower decks. The chasm underneath them was normal for First Order ships, but Rey came to a stop, pulling at Finn’s arm and Poe running into the back of Finn until they all came to a halt.

They all followed her gaze down into the pit.

Liquid, oily and dark, filled the pit and it was rising. On the oily surface broke bodies from its depths, many of them stormtroopers whose white armor had been corrupted and stained.

“Run!” Finn said.

They sprinted across the bridge, hearing the sound of the liquid rising, bubbling, shifting.

By the time they got to the hangar they were at a full sprint. The shuttle was farther away than they remembered. They heard the noise, familiar and horrible just behind them, rushing, getting faster.

They didn’t stop holding hands until they were up the ramp and in the ship. Finn and Poe rushed to the cockpit and Rey slammed the button that pulled up the ramp. As the sliver of the view beyond the hangar closed, she saw the oil begin to gather under the landing gear.

The ship lurched as Poe ignited the engines, pulling the shuttle up. There was a wobble as the engines struggled, the oil sinking them fast.

“Hold on to something!” Poe shouted.

Rey wrapped her arm around a pole. The ship lurched hard and she barely held her stance. They rocketed backwards, out of the hangar.

Finn whooped. Poe and Rey laughed. They had broken free.

The radio crackled. “Hailin—eron—gen—al. Haling General Dameron, please respond.”

“Connix!” Poe yelled. “Oh, it’s good to hear your voice!”

“We were just about to land. You’ve been gone for hours.”

“No! Get away from this ship. Don’t land, we’re on our return approach. Oh, and Connix?”

“General?”

“ _Blow that ship to pieces._ ”

#

Finn, Poe, and Rey held each other’s hands as they watched the star destroyer rotate with the barrage of canon-fire. The ships fell apart rather easily when they didn’t have shields and fighters to contend with. It cracked open and plumes of fire exploded from the decks that still had oxygen. It was falling to the planet below, an uninhabitable gas giant a fitting grave for the nameless, tormenting thing.

“This sector is off limits,” Poe said. “Disseminate the information through the fleet. No one comes here. And if anybody asks why, say it’s because General Dameron says so.”

“Yes, General,” Connix said, obviously wanting to ask more, but too professional to pry.

Poe leaned hard on the window, and Rey and Finn putting their heads on his shoulders.

“There’s more we could have done,” Poe said. “We could have found out where it had been, and maybe saved more lives.”

“We barely made it out,” Finn said. “It didn’t let us go on purpose, so it sure as hell wouldn’t have let us find out where it was from.”

“Finn’s right,” Rey said. “It was the right call. And I liked seeing it get crushed by gravity.”

“Yeah,” Poe said. “That was pretty neat.”

#

After their showers, they collapsed in bed together. They slept for hours, Finn pressed up against Poe, Rey spread out like she was annexing the bed, while Poe covered his eyes with one hand, the other on his belly. Their sleep was long and dreamless. Their brains didn’t have anything else to work out. Their rest was deserved and long, no one interrupting them, per Poe’s orders.

Poe woke when Rey put a finger in some of Poe’s curls. She and Finn were awake already and were trying to get him up gently. Poe rubbed his face.

“I’m up,” Poe said, struggling onto his elbows. “I’m up, I’m up.”

“No,” Rey said, putting her finger on Poe’s chest. Poe was pushed back down on his back. Finn put his chin on Poe’s shoulder and that was when he knew he was utterly trapped, in the best way.

Finn stared at Poe, wanting for all the world for his body to be anything other than exhausted. He did pull himself up and kissed Poe, a long, lazy kiss that Rey admired with her cheek on her hand.

Rey loved the look of them together. Always had. It usually stirred something primal in her, but here, body too spent to do anything about it, she just sat in the warm glow of the bond between them. She put her hand on Poe’s belly and rested her cheek on his chest. It wasn’t cold, not here, not anymore. There was no imitation, no trick to sink her into cold water. Just the warm blanket of loving and being loved.


End file.
